Short Summary

Chile's military junta has been handing out title deeds to home-owners in the capital, Santiago, under a plan to ease the nation's housing shortage.

Description

Chile's military junta has been handing out title deeds to home-owners in the capital, Santiago, under a plan to ease the nation's housing shortage.

Some 1,800 title deeds were handed out on Friday (December 7) at a ceremony in the Diego Portales building, now used as a Government administration centre. The deeds covered houses in 27 villages in Greater Santiago, and were issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urbanisation through the Government's Corporation of Housing Services.

All the home-owner had been living in the houses for several years, and had been due to receive the title deeds two years ago.

The ceremony was presided over by the military government's Minister of Housing, General Arturo Vivero Avila, and the Vice President of the Corporation of Housing Services, Colonel Pedro Medina Arriaza.

General Avila said the government also planned to compile lists of people wanting houses, who were eligible under the Corporation's home savings plan.

General Avila said the new military Government had done more to ease the housing problem in three months than the former Government had done in three years.

The widow of the late President Salvador Allende of Chile told an international inquiry in Finland on Thursday (22 March) that "behind the walls of jails, concentration camps, police stations and stadiums the only sport is torture".

Thousands of young left-wing frenchmen marched through Paris on Saturday (October 6) demanding that Chile's military junta release Communist party Secretary-General, Luis Corvalan and other imprisoned chilean Communists.